Biden is going to announce a national rent cap. 😂
It’s like no one in that admin ever took a basic Econ course. Either that or at this point they’re just throwing populist crap at the wall trying to win votes.
Absurd.
@Smersh Every time someone suggests doing _anything_ that will help people who are struggling with rent or health care or safety, we're told that it is naive or "against economics 101" for that to happen.
Why?
Why do you think rent control is bad? I'm not saying it's good. I'm just wondering why everyone is so well-trained to assume that anything that might _help_ someone is the province of the naive, who "don't know how the economy works."
@Smersh
I know how our economy works. It creates artificial scarcity to enforce control and slavery so an elite can benefit. Do we like that?
@AskTheDevil yes. Thus why creating even more artificial scarcity is stupid.
Rent control literally leads to higher rents, this has been shown time and again. The only solution to lower rents is to increase supply of housing.
@Smersh If rent control is what leads to higher rents, then why do people in rent-controlled apartments end up homeless or paying much higher rent if they lose them, plus everyone else's rent goes up, but without rent control, everyone's rent goes up anyway?
People need houses. We keep building houses only the wealthy can afford, and they're not.
Whatever we have done has not worked, but rent control has kept people out of the gutter.
What do you propose instead? If you could set policy?
@AskTheDevil @Smersh
Sorry to step in...
But question...
Most of the scarcity of apartments in cities like NYC are currently due to corporate holdings of apartments to sell on AirBnB? They but up available housing then three false scarcity raises everyone else's rent...
Same with housing... Blackrock and other private equity are driving the housing scarcity...
Standard economic ethos doesn't play well during such huge conglomerates of wealth and monopolies?
https://jacobin.com/2024/05/single-family-homes-rentals-wall-street
@InvaderGzim do not trust Jacobin with anything economics related. Corporate owned single family homes are less than 1% or something of all homes in the US. I agree single family homes should probably have to be titled in the name of a person, but it's not really a problem yet.
The easiest way though is to undo whatever is holding back housing. We have dollar menu food, mass market clothes and soon will have cheap cars again -- we absolutely need to do that with housing!
@Smersh @InvaderGzim @AskTheDevil
We need more housing supply, is what we need, and it needs to be more affordable housing, not "move up" housing.
Builders have literally still not recovered from the housing crash in 2007/8.
And investors and flippers are absolutely a part of the problem, as well as institutional investors who currently see rental housing as a new way to make money and are buying entire neighborhoods of single-family homes and making them rentals.
@janallmac @Smersh @InvaderGzim And as some people have mentioned, the proliferation of people using homes as short-term rentals for high profit has also taken large amounts of housing off the market and made it more unaffordable, too.
@AskTheDevil outside of vacation markets, short term rentals are not affecting overall rental rates. In fact, in most markets they’re supplementing overbuilt supply.
@janallmac “move up” housing leads to lower housing costs for everyone. It also increases the housing quality across the board, even for non rich.
They don’t build “affordable housing” because it’s not profitable to. Doubly so when the government restricts your ability to raise rents when interest rates go up.
@Smersh @AskTheDevil @janallmac
Short term rentals in cities like NYC and Austin, block out apartments from being rented by locals causing scarcity and thereby driving up rents...
Move up housing is now picking in the $800k range around here... Making the cost of a home like mine push up and up and out of range of young buyers...
The homes they can buy and barely ate fixer uppers that start at $300k??
With down payments and interest and the current salaries for the young it's our of range?
@InvaderGzim again, this is all a supply issue. If we build more housing, prices will come down.
Austin is actually a prime example of this:
"“It’s bad for landlords and it's great for tenants,” said Jake Wegmann, a real estate professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “We should be happy about this.”
"The cause? A surge in apartment building and a drop in the number of people moving to the area."
https://www.kut.org/austin/2024-06-13/austin-texas-rent-prices-falling-2024
@Smersh @AskTheDevil @janallmac
Where would one find the space to build in NYC?
Or LA... Or downtown Portland? Denver?
There are many many cities that are land bound? No?
While building may be possible in Austin and other places... I don't think it's feasible in many as well?
But I guess we can agree to disagree...
Enjoy the day...
@InvaderGzim @Smersh @AskTheDevil @janallmac
In cities, where remote work hybrid scheduling has made office space requirements smaller, residential conversion seems smart. Not
"the" solution but "a" solution. Seems like we have an abundance of empty big box stores in more rural areas that might be converted too. Like where Walmart moves out when initial tax breaks end...
@Vanitas @Smersh @AskTheDevil @janallmac
From other reports I've seen...
The conversion of an office building to apartments can be very involved and costly as the numbers of water runs teens to be limited in office buildings...
Don't need a bathroom and kitchen for every room and they centralize the runs that need water and waste disposal...
Not saying it isn't possible just that it's costly... And that would make it into the rent...
@Smersh @janallmac @InvaderGzim I'm not sure what the polite thing to do is when someone just says a whole bunch of things that are completely untrue.
I think you've been listening to the people who say things like "we can't raise your pay because inflation will go up" or "spending more on housing actually makes costs go down".